


The Enemy Without

by masterofmidgets



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-30
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 04:53:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofmidgets/pseuds/masterofmidgets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In their place, she would have said the same.</p><p>[Episode tag to The Enemy Within, non-graphically mentions canon attempted rape]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Enemy Without

She does know it wasn’t really Kirk who did it.

Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy took her aside when it was over, when they were sure. They sat her down in the doctor’s office with a cup of hot tea liberally dosed with whiskey and explained it to her, neither of their faces betraying their emotions, and she smiled and nodded because she understood, she really did. A transporter malfunction, that’s what they said it was. The captain hadn’t been himself, hadn’t been in his right mind. It wasn’t his fault.

She didn’t blame them for caring more about the captain’s welfare; she would have done the same. She fingered the fading bruises on her throat and the insides of her wrists and kept her uncharitable thoughts to herself. She told them she didn’t blame Kirk for what he did. She understood that it wasn’t really him.

She refused the sleeping pills McCoy offered her.

On the bridge the captain was solicitous, even apologetic, stepping around her as carefully as the rest of the crew did around him. She didn’t know how much he remembered, didn’t want to know. But he spoke softly to her, even when he gave her orders, like she was something fragile that might break, and sometimes he started to flirt with her like he used to and caught himself midsentence, looking ashamed. She appreciated it, she really did. It reminded her that she’d served on the Enterprise for a year, and she knew her captain, and her captain wouldn’t hurt her. So it hadn’t been him who did it.

She tried to hide that she flinched when he touched her, that she couldn’t meet his eyes.

After a month, these are the things that she knows: when she wakes in the night, jaw aching from holding back her screams, she doesn’t have another face to put on her nightmares. When she is alone with him he keeps a yard of space between them, but it doesn’t stop her heart from pounding. Sometimes, when he looks at her, there is something dark lurking in the back of his eyes.

She understands what happened, she really does. They didn’t conjure up some chimera of the captain out of thin air, and they didn’t destroy his double when they sent him away. Whatever he was, he was there before, and he’s still there now, and she knows it, even if the captain tries to pretend it isn’t so.

She knows it was Kirk who did it.

When she hands him her transfer papers, the relief on his face mirrors her own.


End file.
